Artillery battles raises Korea tensions

North and South Korea battered each other with artillery fire today in one of the most serious confrontations since their war ended nearly 60 years ago.

It began with a barrage from the North aimed at an island on the disputed border between the two which set dozens of buildings on fire, sent civilians fleeing for shelter and killed two soldiers.

The clash put South Korea’s military on high alert. Sixteen South Korean soldiers and three civilians were injured and the extent of casualties on the northern side was unknown but sources said they were “considerable”.

The skirmish began when Pyongyang warned the South to halt military drills in the area, according to South Korean officials. When it refused and began firing artillery into disputed waters, albeit away from the North Korean shore, the North retaliated by bombarding the small island of Yeonpyeong, which houses South Korean military installations and a small civilian population.

South Korea responded by firing self-propelled howitzers and dispatching fighter jets. The entire skirmish lasted about an hour.

North Korea fired dozens of rounds of artillery in three separate barrages that began in mid-afternoon, while South Korea returned fire with about 80 rounds.

Island residents fled to 20 shelters on the island and sporadic shelling ended after about an hour.

Each side has threatened the other over another attack.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who convened an emergency security meeting shortly after the initial bombardment, said that an “indiscriminate attack on civilians can never be tolerated.”

“Enormous retaliation should be made to the extent that (North Korea) cannot make provocations again,” he said.

South Korea holds military exercises off the west coast about every three months.

The supreme military command in Pyongyang threatened more strikes if the South crossed their maritime border by “even 0.001 millimetre,” according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The North said it was merely “reacting to the military provocation of the puppet group with a prompt powerful physical strike,” and accused Seoul of starting the skirmish with its “reckless military provocation as firing dozens of shells inside the territorial waters of the” North.

Government officials in Seoul called the bombardments “inhumane atrocities” that violated the 1953 armistice halting the Korean War. The two sides technically remain at war because a peace treaty was never signed, and nearly two million troops – including tens of thousands from the US – are positioned on both sides of the world’s most heavily militarised border.

The clash, along with continuing worry about the fallout from Ireland’s debt crisis, was a factor in pushing Asian and European stock markets sharply lower. Wall Street opened lower.

The exchange represented a sharp escalation of the skirmishes that flare up along the disputed border from time to time. It also came amid high tensions over the North’s apparent progress in its quest for nuclear weapons – Pyongyang claims it has a new uranium enrichment facility – and six weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il anointed his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as the heir apparent.

“It brings us one step closer to the brink of war,” said Peter Beck, a research fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, “because I don’t think the North would seek war by intention, but war by accident, something spiralling out of control has always been my fear.”

The United States, which has more than 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea, condemned the attack.

China, the North’s economic and political benefactor, which also maintains close commercial ties to the South, appealed to both sides to remain calm and “to do more to contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula,” the Foreign Ministry said.

Yeonpyeong lies only seven miles from – and within sight of – the North Korean mainland.

Yeonpyeong, famous for its crabbing industry and home to about 1,700 civilians as well as South Korean military installations. There are about 30 other small islands nearby.

The Koreas have fought three bloody skirmishes on the disputed border in recent years.

In March, a South Korean warship was sunk while on a routine patrol mission. Forty-six sailors were killed in what South Korea calls the worst military attack on the country since the war.

Seoul blamed a North Korean torpedo, but Pyongyang denied responsibility.